Get Email Updates

The Dispatch E-Edition

All current subscribers have full access to Digital D, which includes the E-Edition and
unlimited premium content on Dispatch.com, BuckeyeXtra.com, BlueJacketsXtra.com and
DispatchPolitics.com.
Subscribe
today!

By William YardleyTHE NEW YORK TIMES • Sunday August 1, 2010 6:43 AM

Company battles wind-turbine complaints with $5,000 checks -

IONE, Ore. — Residents of the remote high-desert hills near here have had an unusual visitor recently who is working out the
kinks in clean energy.

Patricia Pilz of Caithness Energy, a New York company that is helping make this part of eastern Oregon one of the fastest-growing
wind-power regions in the country, is making a tempting offer: Sign a waiver saying you won’t complain about excessive noise
from the turbines, and she’ll give you a $5,000 check.

“Shall we call it hush money?” said farmer George Griffith, 84. “It was about as easy as easy money can get.”

Griffith happily accepted the check, but not everyone is taking the money. Even out here — where the recession has steepened
the decline of the rural economy, where people have supported the dams that harness the Columbia River for hydroelectric power,
where Oregon has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in tax incentives for alternative energy — resistance is rising.

Oregon is one of a growing number of places that have drafted specific regulations restricting noise from wind turbines. The
Oregon law allows for noise to exceed what is considered an area’s ambient noise level by only a certain amount. But what
those ambient levels are sometimes is disputed, as is how and where they should be measured.

Caithness Energy hopes it can solve the issue upfront.

It is building a farm that is expected to have 338 turbines and generate more than 900 megawatts when it is completed in 2013,
which would make it one of the largest wind facilities in the country.

Large farms like Shepherd’s Flat are regulated by the state. Tom Stoops, secretary for the Oregon Energy Facility Siting Council,
said that large projects must prove they will comply with the noise ordinance and that noise waivers, or easements, are among
the solutions. Asked whether it was common for companies to pay people to sign such easements, Stoops said, “That’s probably
a level of detail that doesn’t come to us.”

Jarrod Ogden’s house would be directly opposite several 300-foot turbines. The 33-year-old said: “I’m all for windmills, but
I’m not going to let them buy me like that. I think they’re just trying to buy cheap insurance.”